Patna. July 9: Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal (United) national president Nitish Kumar on Monday slammed Union Minister Giriraj Singh for meeting with jailed Bajrang Dal activists in Nawada district. Nitish Kumar said Giriraj Singh's meeting with jailed Bajrang Dal activists was 'unacceptable' and made it clear that his government would not tolerate any attempts to disturb communal harmony in the state.

“This was not acceptable. An open display of sympathy for those whom the administration has found guilty on some counts, is not proper. If someone appears to have been wrongly arrested, one should move the court against it,” the JD(S) chief said after his Lok Samvad programme. He also denied reports of a rift with alliance partner the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over seat-sharing issue for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections 2019.

Asked about Singh's remarks with allegedly communal overtones, Kumar said, "There are many attempts in today's society to disturb social harmony. People have given up decorum in speech. But our government has always been committed to maintaining communal harmony and no attempts to disturb the same will be encouraged, or even tolerated."

Giriraj Singh, who represents Nawada in the Lok Sabha, had on Saturday called on the jailed activists, one of whom was arrested recently in connection with a communal flare-up that took place last year, and the remaining were held while trying to enforce a bandh in protest.

After the meeting, the firebrand BJP leader had told reporters that the arrests as an "attempt to suppress the Hindus", even when the other side was at fault and remarked that he "felt helpless" at not being able to do anything in this regard though his party was in the ruling coalition in the state.

His visit to the Bajrang Dal activists in the jail came close on the heels of Union minister Jayant Sinha felicitating eight convicts in the Ramgarh lynching case after they came out of prison on bail in Jharkhand.